France holds first elections since terror attacks – 12/6/2015 10:06:23 AM

French voters are choosing the leadership for France’s regional councils, and had the choice of several parties in the first round.

France’s far right National Front political party leader Marine Le Pen (front) waves at supporters during the National Front’s annual May Day rally in Paris May 1, 2014.

But former conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy, head of The Republicans, said again that his party would not drop out to help Socialist candidates beat the FN in close races.

The second round of run-off voting this Sunday (Dec. 13) may put a dent in that support, if other parties unite behind a single candidate to prevent the National Front from taking control.

“It’s getting closer”, warns French leftist daily Libération on its front page Monday, alongside a blurry picture of France’s National Front leader Marine Le Pen, one day after her far-right party topped the vote in the first round of the country’s regional elections. They secured between 22 and 23 percent of the votes, a fresh blow to the ruling party, which has been already struggling to erase heavy losses it reported in local and European elections in 2014.

The result is set to provide a sense of the national political mood barely 18 months before the presidential election – and just three weeks after Islamist terrorists launched attacks on Paris and its outskirts, killing 130 people and injuring at least 350.

 Projections suggest these results could translate into victory in up to four regions in the second round of voting on Sunday, December 13.

Front National’s divisive anti-immigration, socially conservative, anti-Schengen platform has been pulling in new voters since the attacks, while continuing to spark criticism and allegations of xenophobia and racism.

The unpopular Socialist president, François Hollande, has seen his approval ratings jump since the Paris attacks, as he intensified French airstrikes on ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq and ordered a state of emergency at home.

The Republicans and their centrist allies were in the lead in only four regions, including the Paris area, which it has hopes of wresting from the Left for the first time in 17 years. She has also sharpened its criticism of global capitalism and added calls for France to withdraw from the eurozone to its traditional campaign against immigration.

It is the last election before France votes for president in 2017, and a gauge of the country’s political direction.